BRIAN BAILEY | A final look back at 'The Run' [bk-040913]

From the Anchor Desk
Tuesday, April 9, 2013

By Brian Bailey

BRAIN BAILEY SHOW

Replay Monday night's BRIAN BAILEY SHOW. Brian's guests were ECU senior basketball players Miguel Paul and Maurice Kemp, network color analyst Si Seymour and Farmville Central AD Larry Williford. Eastern North Carolina's longest running sports radio call-in show airs each Monday night from 6:30-7:30 on Pirate Radio 1250 and 930.

REPLAY SHOW

Pirate Radio Home Page

ITEMS OF INTEREST

A final look back at 'The Run'

Spied from the Crow's Nest

Web Headlines Roundup

Rice rallies to take series

East Carolina clips Owls in marathon

Error lets Owls fly the coop

ECU Victory Flight Returns Home

Retrace the Pirates' march to the CIT title

Fitting climax for milestone season

Post-game audio: ECU coach Jeff Lebo

Post-game audio: Maurice Kemp

Post-game audio: Miguel Paul

Post-game audio: Akeem Richmond

Final 2013 CIT Scoreboard Wrap-up

ECU's March to the CIT Title

ECU Hoops Schedule

ECU Baseball Schedule

ECU Football Schedule

ECU Recruiting

It was a wild scene last Wednesday morning when East Carolina’s CIT championship squad championship squad returned from Ogden, Utah, with that title in hand.

A couple hundred Pirate fans, ECU students and support staff either stayed up all night or got up very early to welcome the Pirates home. It was a scene that reminded me of the Peach Bowl on that first day of January in 1992, when I was on the team charter returning from Atlanta after the greatest win in ECU football history.

This was basketball, where any kind of success has been near impossible to come by.

This year, however, Jeff Lebo and the Pirates gave us a March run to remember in what many hope will be a stepping stone to conference titles and NCAA appearances.

“It’s unbelievable,” Lebo said. “It’s 4:30 in the morning (and) we’ve got a packed housed here. It’s just overwhelming for our kids and our program and we couldn’t have done it without this group of people and the Pirate Nation. We had a lot of games at home and we don’t win those games without their help.

"It’s so nice to see them come out and give us a chance to thank them for their help.”

Maurice Kemp showed the type of class act that he is during the five-game championship streak. Kemp won MVP honors for the tournament and was most humble in doing so.

“This whole postseason has been incredible,” said Kemp. “I really feel like we reached our potential as a team coming down the stretch. We played so hard the whole year and for it to pay off like this is just incredible. We worked so hard. We were so close as a family. ... To share this experience with my brothers, I couldn’t think of a better way to end my career.”

Akeem Richmond took the “shot heard round the Pirate Nation.” His three-pointer as time expired was the game winner in a thrilling 77-74 win over Weber State in that CIT title game.

Richmond had struggled in his past couple of games. When it counted, he found nothing but net.

“My Dad always told me to shoot with confidence,” Richmond said. “If you look at the tape, you can see me running down the court after I shot it because I knew it was going in.”

“We’re just going to enjoy the moment right now,” he said. “We’ll think about the future here in the next couple of days. We’re just trying to soak it in and my wife tells me to smile and enjoy it and that’s what I’m going to try and do the next couple of days.”

“I kind of felt like the late, great Jimmy Valvano with nobody to hug,” said Lebo. “It was an exciting game for us (to win) on the road in that environment. They had an unbelievable environment to play in — 10,600 people there. (It) was really sweet for our team.”

Sweet for the Pirate Nation as well and hopefully just the start of much success in hoops for East Carolina.